Film Screening on the Emory Quadrangle
October 6th, 2021, 7:30 PM, EST
Location: Emory University Quadrangle
In case of rain, the film will be shown in Ackerman Hall on Level Three of the Carlos Museum and masks will be required in accordance with Emory’s Gathering Policy.

The Arrivals wash up on the shore. They make contact with another civilization they call “the Hosts.” And from there, the story splinters, following diverging perspectives. Starting as a procession through the LA State Historic Park, Sweet Land becomes an opera that erases itself.

Named “Best New Opera” by the Music Critics Association of North America in 2021, The Industry’s Sweet Land is a grotesque historical pageant that disrupts the dominant narrative of American identity.

Bring a lawn chair or a blanket and join us on Emory’s Quadrangle for an outdoor screening of the film version of Sweet Land, recorded in March of 2020, outside in Los Angeles State Historic Park.
“opera as astonishment” — Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
“a head-spinning abstraction of colonialism and whitewashed mythology” — Joshua Barone, The New York Times
“a gut punch” — Alex Ross, The New Yorker
Click HERE to watch a trailer for the flim.
Click HERE to view a digital program for the 2020 Los Angeles production.

Pre-Screening Conversation
Presenters: Megan O’Neil,  Raven Chacon, Yuval Sharon, Cannupa Hanska Luger
Tuesday October 5th, 2021, 7:30 PM EST
Location: Zoom
Click HERE to register.

Megan O’Neil, faculty curator of the Art of the Americas and curator for the Carlos Museum’s presentation of Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger, hosts a pre-screening conversation with the creators of Sweet Land, the winner of the 2021 Music Critics Association of North America’s Best Opera award.

Joining Dr. O’Neil will be composer Raven Chacon, member of the Navajo Nation; director Yuval Sharon, founder and artistic director of The Industry and a 2017 winner of a MacArthur Fellowship; and costume designer and director Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, European).

Georgia’s Land Lotteries and Native Americans
Presenter: Dr. Hendry Miller (Georgia Archives Collections Manager)
October 8th, 2021, 12-1 PM EST 
Location: Virtual October Lunch and Learn 
Download Microsoft Teams app to attend this event; register here.

“Georgia’s Land Lotteries and Native Americans” explores Native American reactions to Georgia’s expanding territory in the early nineteenth century. We will first describe land distribution systems in Georgia and then use records of Georgia’s land lotteries to explore how Native Americans interacted with Georgia officials and within their own societies. Lastly, the presentation will discuss what resources are available online and at the Georgia Archives.

Hendry Miller is the Collections Manager at the Georgia Archives, where he has worked since 2018. Originally from Barrow County, Hendry studied history at Valdosta State University and conducted graduate work at Florida State University, earning a Ph.D. in 2017. His research and education focused on American history, particularly the Colonial and Early American South.

The link to the event will also be available on the Georgia Archives webpage.

The Georgia Archives is a unit of Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. The Georgia Archives identifies, collects, manages, preserves, provides access to, and publicizes records and information of Georgia and its people, and assists state and local government agencies with their records management.

Indigenous Storytelling: Language, Culture, and Nature with Dr. Maung Nyeu
October 1, 2021, 1-2 PM EST
Location: Zoom
RSVP

Dr. Maung Nyeu is a Buddhist member of the Marma Indigenous Peoples, one of the several Indigenous Communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. He is the founder and executive director of Our Golden Hour, an organization committed to extending educational opportunities for children in marginalized communities and underserved areas.

In this conversation with Buddhist Chaplain Venerable Priya Sraman, Dr. Maung will share the stories of Indigenous Peoples of Chittagong Hill Tracts, and the intersection between their language, culture, natural environment, and spirituality. Dr. Maung has been engaged in efforts to preserve and pass on these Indigenous languages and culture to the next generation.

For questions, please contact religiouslife [at] emory [dot] edu.

Student Studio: Sewing Circle with Marie Watt
September 26, 2021, 1 PM EST
Location: Emory Quadrangle
*In the event of rain, the sewing circle will be held in Ackerman Hall on Level Three of the Museum and masks will be required in accordance with Emory’s Gathering Policy.
This event sponsored by the Hightower Lecture Fund, the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and Emory University’s departments of Art History, English, Sociology, Anthropology, African American Studies, History, Film and Media Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference

Artist Marie Watt (Seneca), has been holding sewing circles for 15 years. They are integral to her artistic practice as direct opportunities to engage with communities and build relationships, to share her belief in the connective power of creating together. The many hands and voices brought together during sewing circles inform and define the eventual piece, embedding the participants’ stories into the very stitches and knots.

Sewing circles are inclusive by nature and by design. Everyone’s voice is equal in a circle; circles can expand or contract as needed to create space. The panels being stitched often start with an Indigenous point of view and these themes then become touchstones for conversation, connection, and cross-cultural knowledge generously exchanged by participants.

Join Marie Watt on the historic Emory quadrangle for a sewing circle inspired by US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s collection, An American Sunrise.

• No sewing experience necessary
• Come and go as you wish
• Bring a friend and pass the invitation on to others

Artist’s Talk: Marie Watt
September 26, 2021, 12 PM EST
Location: Carlos Museum, Ackerman Hall
This event sponsored by the Hightower Lecture Fund, the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and Emory University’s departments of Art History, English, Sociology, Anthropology, African American Studies, History, Film and Media Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference.

“Once there were songs for everything,
Songs for planting, for growing, for
harvesting, For eating, getting drunk,
falling asleep, For sunrise, birth, mind-
break, and war…”
—Joy Harjo, excerpt from An American Sunrise

Marie Watt’s recent work “sings songs for sunrise.” In a series of new works, she continues and expands her approach to working with blankets, words, and stories to evoke a sensual experience of the natural world using a collection of repurposed blankets; their saturated colors suggestive of the hues of sun-lit earth.

As part of her artist-in-residency at the Carlos Museum in conjunction with the exhibition Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger, Marie will discuss this new body of work, from the inspiration she found in the traditions of the Seneca Nation and in the poetry of Joy Harjo to the ways she uses textiles to create blocks of color—salmon, ochre, rose, honey, lemon, and cranberry—to create “an intimate and sensuous experience of light moving over the horizon, of the radiant change sweeping across sky and ground.”

“What is a sunrise? How does it connect us? In Seneca culture, we offer a thanksgiving address each morning to celebrate the continued connectedness of all things. It’s otherwise too easy to take for granted the revolutions of the sun, the miracle of its daily magic. I’m fascinated by the sunrise — how the sunrise is not the same as sunset; how the quality of sunrise is different from East to West. Isn’t it astounding how at every moment, the sun is rising and setting, somewhere in the world? The sunrise connects us.”  —Marie Watt

Educator Open House
September 25, 2021, 10 AM EST
Location: Carlos Museum, register online, MASKS REQUIRED

Student Studio: Sewing Circle with Marie Watt
September 24, 2021, 1 PM EST
Location: Emory Quadrangle
*In the event of rain, the sewing circle will be held in Ackerman Hall on Level Three of the Museum and masks will be required in accordance with Emory’s Gathering Policy.
This event sponsored by the Hightower Lecture Fund, the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and Emory University’s departments of Art History, English, Sociology, Anthropology, African American Studies, History, Film and Media Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference

Artist Marie Watt (Seneca), has been holding sewing circles for 15 years. They are integral to her artistic practice as direct opportunities to engage with communities and build relationships, to share her belief in the connective power of creating together. The many hands and voices brought together during sewing circles inform and define the eventual piece, embedding the participants’ stories into the very stitches and knots.

Sewing circles are inclusive by nature and by design. Everyone’s voice is equal in a circle; circles can expand or contract as needed to create space. The panels being stitched often start with an Indigenous point of view and these themes then become touchstones for conversation, connection, and cross-cultural knowledge generously exchanged by participants.

Join Marie Watt on the historic Emory quadrangle for a sewing circle inspired by US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s collection, An American Sunrise.

• No sewing experience necessary
• Come and go as you wish
• Bring a friend and pass the invitation on to others

In This Moment: A Conversation with Marie Watt & Cannupa Hanska Luger
With curators John Lukavic from the denver Art Museum and Megan O’Neil from the Carlos Museum
September 24, 2021, 12 PM EST
Location: Carlos Museum, Ackerman Hall, MASKS REQUIRED
If you prefer to access the program through Zoom rather than in person, click HERE to register.

Join curators John Lukavic from the Denver Art Museum and Megan O’Neil from the Carlos Museum, for a conversation with contemporary Indigenous artists Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger whose work is featured in the exhibition Each/Other.  The conversation will address the ways in which these two artists view their work as a collective process of creation focused on engagement with community, materials, and the land.

This program is part of Marie Watt’s artist residency, made possible through the generous financial support of the Hightower Lecture Fund, the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and Emory University’s departments of Art History, English, Sociology, Anthropology, African American Studies, History, Film and Media Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference.

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Migrant Cherokee Mothers; Dust Bowl Allotment Legacies
Presenter: Gina Caison
September 16, 2021, 4-5:30 PM EST
Location: Online. Email event organizer Dr. Mandy Suhr-Sytsma (msuhrsy [at] emory [dot] edu) to request the meeting link. 
Sponsored by: Emory University English Department and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Emory University
Online, free, and open to university faculty, staff, and students as well as community members.

In this talk, Gina Caison examines how cultural and literary histories of the massive erosion event known as the Dust Bowl have not always engaged the Indigenous contours of the story or its relationship to representations of Indigenous women. At the center of this examination will be a consideration of the women characters in Cherokee playwright Lynn Riggs’ early 1940s work, The Cream in the Well. Through an analysis of Riggs’ play constellated with the surrounding legacy of 1930s Dust Bowl imagery, Caison queries what the events collectively known as “the Dust Bowl” (regardless of their geographic proximity to the actual epicenter of the phenomenon) have to tell us about a larger settler colonial anxiety of land theft and land loss.

Bio: Gina Caison is an associate professor of English at Georgia State University where she teaches courses in southern literatures, Native American literatures, and documentary practices. Her first book Red States: Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, and Southern Studies (UGA Press, 2018) won the 2019 C. Hugh Holman Award for the best book in southern literary studies. Along with Lisa Hinrichsen and Stephanie Rountree, she is co-editor of Small-Screen Souths: Region, Identity, and the Cultural Politics of Television (LSU Press, 2017) and Remediating Region: New Media and the U.S. South (forthcoming from LSU Press, 2021). She is currently President of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, and she has just returned to Atlanta following a year as a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Budapest, where she composed the manuscript for her current book project, Erosion: American Literature & the Anxiety of Disappearance.

Click for event flier